The girl took Rudy to show him the pools. However, she was acting a little strange for some reason.
Rudy was curious, but he shrugged it off, thinking she was nervous. But he soon realized the reason why. The pool was filled with nothing but green algae. Not one, but all the pools.
Rudy raised his brows and turned to the girl. He looked at her with complete disbelief in his eyes and asked, "Are you kidding me?"
The girl averted her gaze and avoided eye contact with Rudy. "I told you this place was locked for more than five years."
"Wait, it was two years before!" Rudy exclaimed.
"Yes." The girl nodded and said, "Three years of apocalypse and two years of the pandemic."
'What Apocalypse and pandemic are she talking about?' Rudy wondered. He wanted to ask the girl, but he had something else to do.
"Are you seriously going to give me only 2000$ for cleaning everything?" Rudy never expected the pools to be this dirty. It smelled terrible, too, and the stench was uncomfortable.
"I will give you 2500$" The girl looked at Rudy and said, "Please don't back down now. I asked the professionals to clean the entire place, and they said it would take 50000$."
"And now you are giving me 5% of that?"
"I don't have enough money…" she said with a sad look on her face. "Ever since the apocalypse, this place has been locked down. My younger sister and I were overseas, and my parents were taking care of this place."
"But my parents were infected, and their medical fees were expensive. In the end, they died, leaving my sister and me in a huge 2 million dollar debt."
'That's heavy…' Rudy could sympathize with the girl. He had spent half of his life in poverty, and his family was in debt most of the time.
He could understand what the girl must be going through.
Rudy sighed and shook his hand at the girl. "It's fine. I will clean it for 2000$ as I promised."
"Really?!" the girl's face suddenly brightened with a wide smile.
"Yeah." Rudy nodded and thought. 'I can use my powers. But first, I need to get her out of my sight.'
'Well, she will be going back to her office anyway. So I can use my powers as I want.
"Thank you! I will also help you!" she said.
'Or… maybe not.' Rudy face-palmed himself and walked to the nearest pool.
The girl reached her hand at Rudy to shake hands with him and introduced herself: "My name is Reina. Nice to meet you."
Rudy shook hands with her and said, "I wish I could say the same."
Reina scoffed after hearing that and grinned at Rudy.
"...?"
"You can start cleaning. I will change my clothes…" Reina said to Rudy and looked at her clothes.
Rudy raised his brows and said, "These clothes should be suitable for cleaning, right?"
Her clothes looked old, and the colors were faded.
"Oh, no. These are the one wearable pair of clothes I have left." She added, "Although these are also five years old."
"..." Rudy smiled wryly at Reina and uttered inwardly: 'She reminds me of myself.'
After saying that, Reina went to her office to change clothes.
Rudy let out a weary sigh and looked at the pool. 'Even with my superpowers, this is going to take a while. I better call mom and inform her, or she would get worried.'
Rudy took out his phone to call his mother, but it was out of battery.
"Right… so that's why music stopped…" he muttered. 'I thought it stopped because one-hour free music limit had passed.'
"Well, I should start cleaning." Rudy walked and stopped at the edge of the pool. he covered his mouth because he couldn't stand the pungent smell of the algae.
He pointed his finger at the algae and muttered, "Only if I had the ability to lift everything inside in one go and dump it somewhere without touching it."
As soon as Rudy said that, the water filled with algae hovered in the air above Rudy.
"...!" Even Rudy was surprised, and due to that, he lost control, and everything fell into the pool again.
The slash on the impact spritz some algae at Rudy, but luckily, he used his powers again and stopped it from touching him.
Rudy stared at his hand with a baffled expression on his face and wondered, "How many powers do I have?"
The answer was 'Everything.' However, he had yet to experience them.
"With this power, I can clear all the pools in a matter of seconds…' Rudy uttered with a smirk on his face.
"I am back!" Reina said out loud.
Rudy looked back to see Reina was wearing a blue bikini-type swimsuit.
'Is she seriously thinking of diving into the pools filled with Algae in these clothes to expose her skin to millions of bacterias?'
"What's wrong?" Reina asked with an oblivious look on her face, as though she had no idea what she was going to do.
"Where are we going to dump this water?" Rudy asked.
"The sink in the pool should work, but it's jammed because of the algae." Reina pointed her finger at the sewer in the distance and said, "We can dump everything in there."
"Do you have a big pipe or something? That way, we can easily clean it."
Of course, Rudy had no need for the pipe. But he wanted Reina to get out of his sight so he could use his powers without any problem.
"I will go check in the storeroom!" Reina went to the storeroom behind the office.
Rudy cracked his fingers and uttered, " Now, let's test my powers."